Bonus [repost]

“Never mind about that mop now, Cindy,” Lorraine said as she strode into the kitchen. “The crown prince is outside and he demands every girl in the kingdom try on a silly shoe.”

Cindy backed up against the far wall. “But why me? I’m just a servant now.”

“Of course you aren’t, darling,” her stepmother cooed placatingly. “Your father was a friend to the king himself. Hurry now! Mustn’t keep royalty waiting.”

Cindy followed Lorraine outside into the cool autumn afternoon. Lots of people milled about staring at the prince’s gaudy carriage and the line of girls waiting to try on a glittering shoe. Cindy realized it was the one she’d lost Saturday night when she snuck out to the charity ball and then run off like a madwoman to beat her stepsisters home before curfew.

They were now whining to their mother that the shoe hadn’t fit either one of their feet. “It’s a small shoe,” groused one. “Like Cindy’s size,” complained the other.

“Cindy doesn’t go to dances,” Lorraine said. “She’s busy… studying. Regardless, she must try the shoe or we will look suspicious.”

Cindy had qualms when it was her turn and the crown prince smiled vaguely at her. His gaze was cloudy and myopic, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw he didn’t remember her from the other night. Thank goodness! He’d stepped on her feet so many times her toes were quite swollen, and she winced when his maid attempted to slide it on her foot.

The prince shrugged and turned away. “Anyone else? I will give a bonus of a thousand pounds of gold to the person who finds the lovely lady who fits into this shoe!”

Then Cindy remembered that her stepmother also had small feet, for she had pilfered all of Cindy’s favorite shoes soon after her father’s funeral.

“Lorraine!” Cindy called. “I believe this is your shoe!”

“What? No.” The older woman laughed, but the prince insisted she try on the shoe, which fit her perfectly.

“Hurrah!” the nearsighted prince shouted. “I have found my bride!”

Cindy received her thousand pounds of gold, bought a cute cottage on the edge of the kingdom, and lived happily ever after with her animal friends. Mostly, they all went barefoot.

~*~

Image is mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Karma Chameleon

Happy Summer! Melanie has some sunny new questions to start off the season…

What’s one question you wish more people asked you?

Would you like your $25 million dollar prize in a lump sum or installments?

Do you like eggs?  What’s your favorite way to have them served? (Optional obviously, I know there are egg dislikers in the crowd)

I love eggs. I had fabulous poached eggs atop my avocado toast at brunch this weekend. Yes, she orders avo toast and owns a home too! Don’t hate. I also like scrambled eggs and sunny side up, but poached is my favorite.

Thoughts on scary movies?  (not horror necessarily, but suspense or action/thrillers)

It all depends on the movie, but in general I don’t like most horror, The Shining excepted. Suspense is great, especially psychological suspense. Normally I don’t go for action movies, but I do enjoy 007 and mob flicks. If it’s all car chases and shooting, meh. Mysteries, dramas, and non-stupid comedies are my jam, but note that most comedy is in fact stupid. Romcoms are a fave, if they aren’t awful, which most are.

Do you believe in Karma?

Yes, I do believe in karma, but not the woo woo reincarnation kind. I believe that, in general, you will suffer in some meaningful way in this life for any pain and distress you deliberately cause. I have seen it in action many times and I believe it it applies to myself as well, though I’m not going to elaborate on that. I’ve also seen others suffer as they deserve. This isn’t to say it always works perfectly, or is visible to others, nor does it mean that innocent people won’t suffer pain. But more often than not, putting pain out there comes back to you.

This isn’t because of gods or angels or demons or anything that contradicts our physical laws of nature. Put simply, it just means that if you act like an asshole, eventually you will get punched in the face.

This is a big reason most of us enjoy fictional books and movies, isn’t it? We like to see the good guys win and the bad guys fail in a short span of time. Very satisfying.

~*~

Image swiped from Melanie.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Blame It On Fandango!

My smile for this week is due to our very own blogger Fandango. He mentioned a cupcakery named Smallcakes up near where he lives in NorCal. Naturally I visited their website to view their yummies. And omg surprise! They have a store RIGHT HERE TOO! I had no idea… despite the fact that the cupcakery is in the SAME PLAZA in Huntington Beach (technically Westminster) where I often do grocery shopping! Well, it is a large plaza, and I normally go in the second entrance, which is closer to the grocery store, but Smallcakes is near the first entrance. Anyway…

I visited Saturday afternoon and bought two (2) cupcakes. It was hard to decide because they were all so pretty and elegantly displayed. Lemon drop was a no-brainer because I love lemon desserts, but I debated for a while before choosing the strawberry. It was tough, since they had a gorgeous birthday sprinkle treat, red velvet, salted caramel (with an adorable pretzel stick), etc. But I was very pleased with my choices.

I nommed up the lemon cupcake Saturday night. The cake was very light and fluffy with only the faintest hint of lemon, if any really. That’s OK. I don’t mind plain cake. In the middle however was the lemon “drop” aka a little blob of lemon filling that started as deco on the frosting and extended down into the cake. How did they do that? Magic, I guess. It added a nice element of yum to the cupcake. The frosting was scrumptious… rich and thick, sweet and buttercreamy, very lemony.

Sunday morning I ate the strawberry cupcake for breakfast. This time though the cake itself was full of flavor, very pink and strawberry-y. It was just as light and fluffy as the lemon cake too. The frosting was incredibly delicious, full of flavor and creaminess. Generally, I enjoy a cupcake the second day more. Don’t know why. I think that one day of “staleness” does something interesting to the texture of the frosting. In any case, I HIGHLY recommend Smallcakes, especially the strawberry cupcake.

Thanks, Fandango!

~*~

Image is mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Frozen [repost]

You were wine and warm nights,
Fire-streaked sunsets,
Crackling conversation.
I was cold violet dawn,
Quiet morning walks,
Soft spongy footsteps.

I showed you the broken
Ice on the river,
Where the mud ugly water
Flowed underneath.
Sunlight shattered
Into rainbows on shards.

You left me soon after
For someone happy and chatty,
Picnics and laughter.
I return to the river–
It’s all frozen over.
The rainbows are gone.

~*~

Written for the Daily Echo

Image credit to Sue Vincent (RIP).

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

TMP13: Red Light Runners

Welcome to my refreshed Monday Peeve! Unburden yourself of an annoyance and you’ll feel better afterward. Or not. Complain in my comments or crab in your own post. Doesn’t have to be on a Monday. You do you.

Today’s peeve is an oldie but a goodie: those asshats who run red lights. They’re so dangerous and scary, and so inconsiderate. Now, to be clear, I’m not talking about zipping through the intersection when the light turns yellow even though you have time to safely stop. I almost always stop then, unless I am a bit too close to the line. Plus with all the tailgaters, you don’t want to slam on your brakes. But I’m not talking about that! I’m talking about people who literally BEGIN their foray into the intersection AFTER the light turns red. I mean, WTF? I have seen it several times in this past week, both during my commute and on weekends. It’s worse than before the plague, or maybe I simply became used to empty streets. But no… I feel something else is happening. People are so damn eager to be out and about now that they can’t bear for anything to delay them by a couple seconds.

I think they should get jail time. Clearly tickets aren’t enough of a deterrent, even though they’re quite expensive. Nope. These selfish morons need to have something precious taken from them, and it’s the same thing they stole from us when they ran the red: time and peace of mind. A week in jail for every red light run. Boom.

~*~

Image altered from the original on Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Happy Father’s Day! [repost]

Support(ive) is the best way to describe my relationship with my dad, before he faded from dementia. He was an encouraging, upbeat guy, with a salesman’s type of personality. He’d get angry, but it was gone in a flash, and he generally stayed within the range of mellow to happy. Though he had definite opinions about politics (card-carrying liberal from NYC), among other things, he’d bounce back after a discussion or debate, no hard feelings.

Daddy wasn’t a griller or a BBQ dude or any sort of handyman guy. Mom actually did all that stuff (RIP). Dad believed in going out to dinner. Mostly though he just read books and of course his beloved NYT. That’s what he’d be doing today, if he were still around and able. I’d likely bake some fudgy brownies for him. Those were his favorite.

He was always up for a conversation with me. Always supportive of my endeavors. Always encouraging of my dreams and goals, though he would express his ideas if he thought I might be making a mistake. He was a good father and I was lucky to have him.

Dad and me, at his 80th birthday, 2010 (RIP).

Love you, Dad.

~*~

Image is mine.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

SLS: Goodbye Cruel World

Jim’s prompt today gave me lots of ideas for songs! So many came to mind that I couldn’t decide and procrastinated. Then I figured that others would choose the more widely known tunes, such as “Cruel To Be Kind,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” and “Cruel Summer.” I googled a bit and found this absolute GEM by James Darren called “Goodbye Cruel World.” Maybe some of you know it (I’m not going to use the term “super oldie” again, lol). I suggest that everyone listen because not only is it a cute song, but also there are loads of pics of James in the video. Mmm…

The song was written by Gloria Shayne Regney and had several covers, but James’ 1961 version is the most famous (not that I ever heard of it before my search). It’s a humorous take on feeling brokenhearted with fun circus music accompanying the tune. This was Darren’s first top ten hit on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at #3), as well as the biggest hit of his musical career. He had lots of success on the screen as well, notably in the Gidget movies and the TV series T.J. Hooker. Want to feel old? James Darren just turned 85.

Goodbye Cruel World (click to listen on YouTube)

Oh, goodbye, cruel world
I’m off to join the circus
I’m gonna be a broken-hearted clown
Paint my face with a good-for-nothin’ smile
‘Cause a mean, fickle woman
Turned my whole world upside-down […]

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Street Smart Cats [repost]

I don’t know why there’s been an ongoing debate over whether cats are smarter than dogs when clearly they’re so different. Why compare? But for sure cats understand a lot more words than they let on.

I used to occasionally feed the couple stray black cats that lurked around our parking lot. I put my food near another car where this other woman fed them. She had a bunch of food dishes out. Eventually she moved and the dishes disappeared. I didn’t see the cats much and figured either they found a new source of food or it had found them.

Monday night one appeared as I exited my car after work. Ohai! I decided to give him a can of the food Gatsby had rejected and brought it downstairs on a paper plate. But by that time kitty had vanished. I began talking into the air. “Hey, kitty! I have some food here! And I’m putting it in the corner near my car, not in the other place where I used to put it near the other car.”

I figured eh, lost cause, food will sit there uneaten, and I went to get the mail. Three minutes later, both black cats were eating the food.

Last night they were both waiting for me. Luckily, I have a lot of food up here. Gatsby will now only eat pure organic chicken/pea crunchy bits. I have loads of other stuff he abruptly quit eating when his tummy got upset the other week. The stray cats will eat all of whatever I put out.

~*~

Image from Pexels.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

Hot Enough For Ya? [socs]

Are writers pyromaniacs? They sure talk about heat and fire a lot. Romance novels are full of warm looks, hot kisses, burning desires, and fireworks exploding when people make love. The obsession with heat transcends genre however. Here are some titles from my list of read books. OK, most are romance, though some are horror (as if there’s a difference).

Sizzling. One Hot Cowboy Wedding. Devilishly Hot. Firestarter. Firelight. A Song of Ice and Fire. The Girl Who Played With Fire. Little Fires Everywhere. A Dream of Fire. Heart of Fire.

What about music? Fire It Up. We Didn’t Start the Fire. Fire Down Below. Fire and Ice. The Heat Is On. Hot Summer Nights. Hot Legs. Hot Child In The City. Burning Up. I’m Burning For You. And those are just the titles!

It’s kind of weird that fire/burning is associated with love/sex/romance, when it also conjures up notions of hell. Then again, considering my past relationships, perhaps it’s not strange at all…

~*~

Image from Pixabay.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.

The Unraveling [repost]

I tried to work with the delicate
Fabric and handle it gently with extra
Tender thoughtful care, paying so much
Attention to every nuance of stitching
And pulling and catching, but
It was so lacy and fine and slippery
By design that eventually it ripped
Apart between my fingers, shreds
Of threads lingering softly
On my skin before sliding
Away never to be seen again.
Sometimes I miss the remnants
Of those gossamer days when
I didn’t notice everything was frayed
And blowing away
In the slightest hint of wind.

~*~

Poetry form: free verse.
Image from Pexels.

©️2021 Paula Light and Light Motifs II. No unauthorized use permitted. Please check out Paula’s books for sale on Amazon. Thank you.